"
And well for him I did, for I do not hesitate to say that the battle WAS
GAINED BY ME. I do not mean to insult the reader by pretending that any
personal exertions of mine turned the day,--that I killed, for instance,
a regiment of cavalry or swallowed a battery of guns,--such absurd tales
would disgrace both the hearer and the teller. I, as is well known,
never say a single word which cannot be proved, and hate more than all
other vices the absurd sin of egotism; I simply mean that my ADVICE to
the General, at a quarter past two o'clock in the afternoon of that day,
won this great triumph for the British army.
Gleig, Mill, and Thorn have all told the tale of this war, though
somehow they have omitted all mention of the hero of it. General Lake,
for the victory of that day, became Lord Lake of Laswaree. Laswaree!
and who, forsooth, was the real conqueror of Laswaree? I can lay my hand
upon my heart and say that I was. If any proof is wanting of the fact,
let me give it at once, and from the highest military testimony in the
world--I mean that of the Emperor Napoleon.
In the month of March, 1817, I was passenger on board the "Prince
Regent," Captain Harris, which touched at St. Helena on its passage from
Calcutta to England. In company with the other officers on board the
ship, I paid my respects to the illustrious exile of Longwood, who
received us in his garden, where he was walking about, in a nankeen
dress and a large broad-brimmed straw-hat, with General Montholon, Count
Las Casas, and his son Emanuel, then a little boy; who I dare say does
not recollect me, but who nevertheless played with my sword-knot and the
tassels of my Hessian boots during the whole of our interview with his
Imperial Majesty.
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